Our life in the foothills of Calaveras County, California. The pond is at the center of everything. In case we should forget, the bullfrogs yell it out all summer long. A noisy place, but home.

Pond!

Monday, April 15, 2013

The Cabin

As we were coming down from the hills on Bruce's birthday drive-photoshoot, we passed by an old, falling-apart cabin. The front half was perched up near the road, while the back was hanging off the side of a cliff. That's all I saw before we'd left it behind in a turn of the road. It is a testament to the good nature of certain Bears that when I told him (rather wistfully) that I'd like to take a closer look at it, that he stopped, put the car in reverse, and backed about an eighth of a mile to where my the cabin waited for me.

Trespassing makes me nervous, but this strange, forlorn shack with a tree seeming to grow out of each end called me over. I was tentative but determined.

The front door was open - I really wanted to go inside, but the floorboards looked like they'd be happy to send me down the hillside. So I contented myself by leaning through a side window and taking pictures from there.

The rooms were empty except for a bit of junk tossed around. Some of the walls had been busted up, the windows were broken and even the doorknob was gone. The tin roof was in good shape though.

I noticed all of these details as though I were looking to move in. Truly, I felt more drawn to this tiny, unloved place than to many places I have had to live in -- places with running water, inside toilets and floors. Not to mention doorknobs.

There was flowering rosemary and a grapevine leafing out in what had been the front garden. A rusted bed frame rested behind the bushes.

The trees screened most of the valley below, but I could catch glimpses of the distant hills on the other side.

I don't remember hearing birds or wind or sound of any kind -- just the sound of my own voice as I'd occasionally call out to Bruce what I was finding. Everything was so still.

I've been thinking about this little cabin a lot. It obviously has seen happy times (unhappy people don't plant rosemary), but now sits abandoned. It appears to be waiting for something or someone.

Bruce won't be too happy moving because I'm assuming it has no Internet. The cats will love it though. True, it does need a lot of work, but the roof is sound.

About Me

My husband and I live in a small house by a small pond that is just past the first and smallest foothill of the mighty Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Our nearest town has the rather large name of Copperopolis, but the town itself is also very small. During the school year I drive my small car down into the valley to teach 4th grade at – you guessed it – a smallish school. On both a grand and a personal scale, life is too short and too miraculous to be taken for granted. This chronicle of our life here at Frogpond Acres is one way for me to remain mindful and appreciative of the many not-so-small wonders and blessings that surround us.